An Otherworldly Child
by vikung-fu
Summary: East London, 1963. 16-year-olds Dolores Farlow and Lo Schiller are frustrated with the new girl in Class 2-A. She must think she's all that or something. AU!Doctor, OCs.


**An Otherworldly Child**

"New girl is _well_ getting on my tits."

She turned, looking across the playground at the young girl with her anorak hanging over her shoulders, both hands clutching the handles of her John Lewis leather briefcase, swinging it from side to side as she stood at the edge of the grass, expressionless and indifferent.

"What _her_?" asked Lo, raising an eyebrow. "She's only like 13-years-old or something?"

Dolores nodded.

"Yeah _her_," she replied with a snarl. "Gets on my tits proper.."

"She's 13," Lo reiterated with a sigh, taking a nail file out of her pocket and going to work. "Don't know why you're getting so bent out of shape."

Across the playground, the young girl continued the slow motion of her arms, her eyes staring ahead watching each and every person that passed her by.

"There's just something so, ugh, creepy about her," Lo answered with a shudder. "I mean, you know what I mean, right? You've seen it too."

"Yeah," Dolores muttered with disinterest, "totally."

Lo turned sharply away, glaring down at her friend as she filed her nails.

"You're not even listening to me!" she protested.

"Totally," Dolores repeated.

Angrily, the older girl reached out, shoving her friend forward, all but knocking the file from her hand.

"What was that for?" Dolores protested, looking up, her cheeks suddenly red.

"It's like talking to a brick wall, talking to you, yeah?" Lo shouted, storming away from her, shoving against her shoulder as she passed.

At the edge of the grass, the young girl with her cheap John Lewis briefcase slowly turned her attention towards them.

x

"All right, settle down, settle down."

How did I grow up to be this person, she asked herself, almost 30, standing at the front of a classroom of nameless school children, nothing to show for her life but a patchy career, an overambitious mother, and two years of her life she would rather pretend had never happened.

And yet the problem with divorcing herself from her past, she reflected, meant that she was left free-falling in the present with no safety net to catch her.

"Come on, the sooner we get this started, the sooner we can get this over with."

She watched as the children shuffled past her, swinging bags, calling each other names, talking about television, music, holidays in Greece; the useless little artefacts of the boundaries that encircled their world.

How did I grow up to be this person, she asked herself once more.

The sound of chairs scraping against the floor, the continual conversation breaking like waves over her head, and Rebecca Pelles—_Becks_ to her family and friends, to anyone who would listen—felt the bottom of her metaphorical fall rising up to meet her.

The noise of the class continued, her voice ignored amidst the sound of their ongoing conversations.

She sighed with frustration, the muscles in her neck stiffening as she set her jaw against the need to scream.

"I hope you all like tests," she said, her voice raised, "because that's what you'll be doing this lesson."

She glanced about the room and stopped abruptly, noticing a new child sitting at the back of the room, long hair falling over the dark blue of her school blazer, cold, disinterested eyes staring out towards the autumnal horizon beyond the window.

Shuffling papers on her desk, she looked around at her class, trying not to focus on the new child.

"Your test today will be on what you learnt over the holidays of Marco Polo and his portrayal in fiction."

She stopped abruptly, seeing the new girl shaking her head slowly from side to side, her dark hair swaying gently.

Within her, she felt a sudden anger welling up, an unmistakable spite, the kind each teacher felt; the kind of spite that led to shame and questioning of choices.

"You!" she gestured angrily pointing at the girl.

The child turned to face her, her sharp, hazel eyes staring directly into hers.

"Joan," she answered softly, the faint suggestion of a Scottish accent characterising her words. "Joan Smith, miss."

"Do you have something to say, Joan?" Rebecca Pelles demanded with frustration. "Something you'd like to share with the class?"

"Well, it's these stories," the child said, lifting up a pristine copy of _Messer Marco Polo_, bound in red cloth and looking not a day older than its first printing, "they're very inaccurate."

Miss Pelles rolled her eyes with agitation.

"And how would you know that, Joan Smith?" she demanded. "Were you there?"

"Yes," the child answered instantly, "as a matter of fact, I was. He was quite a charming man. It was that Tegana that was the real problem."

"That's quite enough, _Joan Smith_!"

The name became an insult, a gathering of words uttered from the belly of spite.

"You're far too young to know what the world is really like," she said softly, her voice full of unspoken threat.

A momentary doubt filled Rebecca Pelles, a sudden anxiety concerning this girl, so precocious, so sure of herself, so utterly alien. The head had mentioned a new girl in Class 2-A during his inspirational speech that morning, that well intentioned yet thoroughly ambiguous pep talk that had been intended to inspire the gathered teachers before the first day of term, the sky outside a dull grey marked with the lavender bruises of threatening clouds, and, for all her good intentions, Miss Pelles had ignored the whole thing, assuming that the matter applied to one of the other teachers.

Confronted now with this otherworldly child, she struggled to know how to react, how to deal with the scenario, a warm blush spreading across her cheeks, a fear of being seen as powerless by the children, a fear of what the consequences of such a conclusion might be.

Hadn't she overheard two of the older girls, probably Dolores Farlow and Lo Schiller no less, as they had discussed the new girl in the playground that morning? If only she had been better prepared, if only she had been aware of what a problem child a girl such as this might be.

There was nothing that striking about her, straight dark hair, her eyebrows slightly unkempt, a small white button badge with a question mark appended to the right strap of her pinafore, and yet for all the many ways in which she was much like any other girl her age, Joan Smith was strangely different, strangely more than the sum of her years.

"I-I don't think you're one to be lecturing me, Miss Smith," she said, trying to affect a recovery, to regain control of the situation. "Perhaps you'll like to provide me an essay for tomorrow on the perils of impertinence just so we can be sure that we are on the same page, however."

Glowering from her seat, the young girl said nothing, yet for the rest of the lesson, Rebecca Pelles felt her eyes burning into her back.

x

"You shouldn't get in their bad books, you know," Gwyneth Ambrose advised, her long blonde hair tied in a braid that trailed down her back, brushing against the collar of her blouse and the polyester of her uniform.

Joan Smith eyed the other girl with a marked curiosity as they made their way through the crowded corridor, buffeted this way and that by students heading in different directions.

"The older girls, the teachers," Gwyneth continued, "it doesn't pay to rattle cages, new girl."

1963, East London, Joan mused, failing to respond correctly.

"Hey, new girl, you should take my advice. It's free, after all."

Joan nodded.

"Thank you, I'm sure."

Gwyneth, pale and thin, offered her a sour expression and dropped back a step or two.

"No need to be so uppity, new girl," she muttered.

Joan did not reply, continuing to navigate the flow of students around her, marching effortlessly ahead, and, despite her short stature, commanding a strange, unspoken respect from those who did not yet know her.

1963, East London, she thought again; what was so important about East London in 1963? The noise of children around her was distracting, their chatter like the sound of agitated geese quarrelling amongst each other. She needed both time and space to think, a chance to evaluate things properly—all of a sudden, there was a presence blocking her way, two girls, 16-years-old at best, their expression sour and unhappy.

Joan attempted to step around them and found they stepped to block her, allowing Gwyneth Ambrose to pass, who paused only slightly to offer a furtive I-told-you-so look.

"You're getting on my tits, new girl," said the taller of the two, blonde hair swept back and held back by a white Alice band, the top button of her school blouse scandalously undone.

Joan Smith raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"You must think you're top dog around here, new girl, to come along copping that sort of attitude," the other girl advised, bobbed hair a warm copper gold, cat's eye glasses and a perpetual sneer.

"I have assumed no such thing," Joan countered with a frown.

"Why do you talk so funny, new girl?" the first girl asked.

"Yeah, where are you from, new girl?" the second added.

With dark eyes, Joan Smith turned her gaze from one to the other.

"Elsewhere," she answered, "_andwards_."

The first girl scoffed.

"That's not a word, new girl. Didn't they teach you anything at your old school?"

"I studied at the Prydonian Academy at the foot of Mount Cadon where there was little occasion for me to worry about how I might come across to frustrated teenagers. You should let me pass, I have a problem to solve."

Dolores Farlow, elder of the two girls, looked at her for a moment, unable to respond, struggling to find the words to express her frustration, her cheeks turning red with humiliation.

"You cheeky little shit," she began, "I should bloody well box your—"

"But you won't," Joan cut her off, "because we both have better things to contend with."

Lifting her left arm, the younger girl looked at the watch bound to her wrist by a thin leather strap, its display flickering, a sudden projection of the ten planets of the solar system springing up in three dimensions, rotating slowly from the small blue-green orb where they resided to far distant Mondas as it crawled its way back into the orbit of the sun.

"The year is 1963," Joan Smith muttered, almost to herself, "and there is something about East London that I cannot recall."

She lifted her head and lowered the watch, the display flickering out of existence, leaving both Dolores Farlow and Lo Schiller stunned and flustered.

Smiling warmly, she offered them a wink.

"Ladies, I believe I have a conundrum to solve. Good day to you."

Calmly, she stepped to the side and neither girl made any effort to stop her, the sound of the school bell ringing, the corridor thinning and a sudden chill settling over E1.


End file.
